Cockpit Audio recording

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Luca Herman

Filing Flight Plan
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May 31, 2018
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Luca Herman
I’m attempting to record audio from my flight lessons. I don’t need the video, just audio to review when I’m not up in the air. I watched a few videos and looked around the web and so far I cannot find to much information. I have some items I found on amazon that I think will work but how can I be sure. On a side note I heard audio in recording is necessary for clear recording directly off the radio. Is this true and how can I tell if the recorder has this feature? Thank you!
 
You really need a tape of “rudder”, “pitch”, “power”, and “airspeed”?,
 
Clip4 said:
You really need a tape of “rudder”, “pitch”, “power”, and “airspeed”?,
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There’s other stuff said. I would like to have it, it’s how i study in every other facet of life
 
Perhaps the simplest way, and overall pretty good, would be to get a lavalier microphone and stick it into the earcup of your headset. Plug the other end into a recording device - smartphone or dedicated $15 eBay/Amazon digital voice recorder.
You can use Audacity to edit pretty easily - it's good free software.

However, you may also find video very helpful. If you can mount a GoPro (or similar wideangle camera) on the ceiling, you can set it up to get the full width of the panel and the yokes, so you can see what your hands are doing. Not realistic to get much outside view and inside at the same time.

Most GoPro type cameras have a microphone input, so the lavalier will work great there, too. If you use the DVR and the camera separately, you can easily synch the recordings by counting and clapping together at the beginning "One Two Three" and it will be close enough.
Happy Flying, and safe learning, to you!
 
If you just want audio I would recommend getting a small digital audio recorder and the appropriate cable to connect into the intercom audio. I use this one: http://amzn.com/B01NCO5PBQ but there are much cheaper ones and you can even do it with just an app running on your phone if you want. I like having a dedicated recorder since it's more reliable. The cable you'd want is one like this or the equivalent: http://amzn.com/B01BFJ0FX6

Another very expensive way to do it is to get a Lightspeed PFX headset which can record the audio wirelessly on an iPhone or iPad running their app (the Zulu 3 can also do it but only with wires AFAIK). In that case you can even jump back and replay audio while you're still recording in case you want to replay an ATC message or something.
 
G-Man said:
Perhaps the simplest way, and overall pretty good, would be to get a lavalier microphone and stick it into the earcup of your headset. Plug the other end into a recording device - smartphone or dedicated $15 eBay/Amazon digital voice recorder.
You can use Audacity to edit pretty easily - it's good free software.

However, you may also find video very helpful. If you can mount a GoPro (or similar (...)by counting and clapping together at the beginning "One Two Three" and it will be close enough.
Happy Flying, and safe learning, to you!
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I’m not in the market to purchase a camera just yet, however the audio recording device sounds nice. I want to get one I can plug into the intercom directly, which one could I use?
 
Steve Kanefsky said:
If you just want audio I would recommend getting a small digital audio recorder and the appropriate cable to connect into the intercom audio. I use this one: http://amzn.com/B01NCO5PBQ but there are much cheaper ones and you can even do it with just an app running on your phone if you want. I like having a dedicated recorder since it's more reliable. The cable you'd want is one like this or the equivalent: http://amzn.com/B01BFJ0FX6

Another very expensive way to do it is to get a Lightspeed PFX headset which can record the audio wirelessly on an iPhone or iPad running their app (the Zulu 3 can also do it but only with wires AFAIK). In that case you can even jump back and replay audio while you're still recording in case you want to replay an ATC message or something.
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That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m looking for but can I use a cheaper recording device?
 
G-Man said:
Perhaps the simplest way, and overall pretty good, would be to get a lavalier microphone and stick it into the earcup of your headset. Plug the other end into a recording device - smartphone or dedicated $15 eBay/Amazon digital voice recorder.
You can use Audacity to edit pretty easily - it's good free software.

However, you may also find video very helpful. If you can mount a GoPro (or similar wideangle camera) on the ceiling, you can set it up to get the full width of the panel and the yokes, so you can see what your hands are doing. Not realistic to get much outside view and inside at the same time.

Most GoPro type cameras have a microphone input, so the lavalier will work great there, too. If you use the DVR and the camera separately, you can easily synch the recordings by counting and clapping together at the beginning "One Two Three" and it will be close enough.
Happy Flying, and safe learning, to you!
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Could you suggest a recording decide?
 
I got a cable on Amazon that works fine with my Android phone. You basically download any app that records voice and plug the cable one end onto your headset, the other onto the airplane and the 3.5mm jack into your phone and you're good to go. It records all audio from the intercom. Make sure your phone has the storage space for it. :)
 
FYI, the cable that Steve K. linked above to tap audio off of your headset-to-plane connection will only work with dedicated digital audio recorders, but NOT with smartphones (e.g. iPhones, Androids, etc.)

The 3.5mm jacks are slightly different between the two types of recording cables as shown below (count the number of rings).

If you own a smartphone, then all you need is this cable:

Nflightcam Smartphone Cable - $34.99
http://a.co/47KlxBY

It worked flawlessly with my iPhone 6 that had a 3.5mm input. I also got it to work with my iPhone 7 and the stupid "3.5mm-to-lighting" dongle that comes with the phone, but it was pretty finicky. I finally realized that it wouldn't work unless I plugged it together in a certain order (I think it was cable to dongle and then dongle to phone, but it might have been the opposite order).

RecordingCables.jpg
 
That's right. Basically if it has a separate headphone and microphone jacks then you want the "digital audio cable" and if it has a combined headphone/microphone jack then you'd want the "smartphone audio cable." Laptop computers could go either way.

As I said I think it's worth getting a dedicated recorder because it's more reliable, easier to transfer the audio files to your computer, doesn't tie up your phone so you can use it for other stuff, etc.
 
I'll second @eetrojan and @MacFlier's recommendation for a cable to connect to your smartphone and turn it into a recorder. Iphones have a native app to record voice and there is always the video camera app as well. The cable I use for my GoPro-wannabe also works with the iPhone and costs about $25 on Amazon.

If you are reluctant to buy a camera because of cost considerations, you may want to look at inexpensive GoPro knock-offs. I have a Git2P which is practically a generic GoPro and works just fine. The whole packet (mounts, camera, cable for intercom, and 64G memory) came just under $150.
 
I think the "digital audio" refers to the other side of the cable, where you would almost certainly be connecting a digital audio recorder. You don't get "smartphone" from an aircraft audio panel either :) But theoretically it could be any device with a 3.5mm audio input, and of course the input itself is analog.
 
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What Steve said. It’s referring to the digital nature of the “digital audio recorder,” not to the nature of the signal moving over the cable to the recorder.
 
Which just “continues the stupid” as a friend says. There’s nothing digital about the connection to a digital audio recorder that would be used for this.

“Marketing wank” is my phrase for it. :)
 
I think you're reading too much into it. They're not trying to say the cable is awesome because it's somehow "digital," they're just trying to distinguish it from the nearly identical looking "smartphone" cable.

That sort of marketing wank is for some stupid company called "Monster Cable."
 
eetrojan said:
I think you're reading too much into it. They're not trying to say the cable is awesome because it's somehow "digital," they're just trying to distinguish it from the nearly identical looking "smartphone" cable.

That sort of marketing wank is for some stupid company called "Monster Cable."
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Both descriptions are incorrect.

Monster cable is a company that figured out fools and their money are soon and easily parted.

The only difference between those two cables is a $0.50 connector, easily described as to exactly what it is. Not “digital” and not “smartphone”.

Too bad monoprice doesn’t make those exact cables, they’d be $3. Nflightcam is also way overpriced for what they are.
 
denverpilot said:
Both descriptions are incorrect.
The only difference between those two cables is a $0.50 connector, easily described as to exactly what it is. Not “digital” and not “smartphone”.
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The fact is that if you want to record to a smartphone you should buy the smartphone cable and if you want to record to a digital audio recorder you should buy the digital audio recording cable. I do think it would be a little clearer to call it a "digital audio recorder cable" instead of a "digital audio recording cable."

My guess is that if they described it as a "3.5mm TRS cable" and a "3.5mm TRRS cable" a lot more people would buy the wrong cable or would be less likely to find the appropriate cable with a search query.
 
Steve Kanefsky said:
My guess is that if they described it as a "3.5mm TRS cable" and a "3.5mm TRRS cable" a lot more people would buy the wrong cable or would be less likely to find the appropriate cable with a search query.
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Pretty sure if they put the usage info in the web pages, the search engines would find them just fine. Could call them Bob and Betty for all the search engines care.
 
denverpilot said:
Pretty sure if they put the usage info in the web pages, the search engines would find them just fine. Could call them Bob and Betty for all the search engines care.
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Depends on the search engine. Google and Amazon sure, but many online shopping websites have horrible search capabilities. Also the results will typically display just the name of the product, so it would still be much easier to identify the correct product if the intended use was part of the product name rather than buried in the description.
 
Steve Kanefsky said:
Depends on the search engine. Google and Amazon sure, but many online shopping websites have horrible search capabilities. Also the results will typically display just the name of the product, so it would still be much easier to identify the correct product if the intended use was part of the product name rather than buried in the description.
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Guess some search engines suck bad then.

Gotta Marketing wank up the product names for their inability to code.

Or as I said, “continue the stupid”. :)
 
The product manufacturer isn't responsible for every search engine that might be used to find their products.

I still don't see what bugs you so much about naming a cable for the things that it connects to rather than only by the specifications of the cable and connector itself. Even cables that are used for transmitting digital audio aren't inherently digital in any way. They're just cables with certain kinds of connectors and impedance specifications, but it's a lot easier to find the correct one by describing it in terms of what it's used for rather than purely based on the cable specifications.
 
P.S. You know how many phone calls the tech support line is going to get from any idiot who can’t figure out how to Google and only uses one of those other shopping things to search for something as specialized as an airplane intercom recording cable?!

No wonder they charge so much for them. Hahahahahaha. They have to have someone talk that person through how to plug in a cable and it takes four hours on the support line to get them there. :)

As an aside, if the “digital recorder” or “smartphone” doesn’t have an attenuation function on the recording, a cable with no resistor pad in it is quite likely to be way too high level for them both and the audio will sound distorted or clipped when a typical intercom is set for a comfortable listening level into aviation 600 ohm impedance headsets.

That cable needs about 20 dB of padding to really get that drive level back down to something reasonable for a typical line level input on a recorder or phone input. Which is what mine has in it, and my digital recorder (found via Google in ten seconds back when I bought it) has auto-ranging on its input to knock down any overdriven audio it gets.

It’s just a typical cheap recorder for interviews and music from Tascam, who’s been in that biz for decades. But many of the lower quality “dictation” style recorders will have the feature also. I went with the Tascam for higher sampling rate and dual stereo mics built in on top of it for other uses besides in the airplane.

Could have gotten fancy and used a four-track and then had extra channels that could be used for for stuff like an ambient mic, which if you’re making videos, many people like to hear, if you edit it correctly and duck the ambient down quite a bit so it’s not obnoxiously loud. But I realized I could just time sync video and audio and one of the video cameras can get the ambient sound and be included in the final mix-down.
 
denverpilot said:
P.S. You know how many phone calls the tech support line is going to get from any idiot who can’t figure out how to Google and only uses one of those other shopping things to search for something as specialized as an airplane intercom recording cable?!
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How are they going to get the call if the user failed to find their product in the first place? :)

denverpilot said:
As an aside, if the “digital recorder” or “smartphone” doesn’t have an attenuation function on the recording, a cable with no resistor pad in it is quite likely to be way too high level for them both and the audio will sound distorted or clipped when a typical intercom is set for a comfortable listening level into aviation 600 ohm impedance headsets.
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That's another reason to describe the cable according to what it will be connected to, rather than having to specify details like whether it's got a padding resistor or not. Even calling it a "mic level" or "line level" cable would violate your standards since the cable itself has no inherent level.

denverpilot said:
Could have gotten fancy and used a four-track and then had extra channels that could be used for for stuff like an ambient mic, which if you’re making videos, many people like to hear, if you edit it correctly and duck the ambient down quite a bit so it’s not obnoxiously loud. But I realized I could just time sync video and audio and one of the video cameras can get the ambient sound and be included in the final mix-down.
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That's one reason I use a separate audio recorder. Another is so I don't have to run the cable to the camera which might be on the ceiling or somewhere well away from the headset jacks. The Garmin ViRB Ultra 30 video camera does have a nice feature where it can record the external audio to one channel and the ambient audio to the other. It needs yet another special cable since it uses a mini USB connector (but not USB protocol) for the external microphone. I won't even guess what you think the appropriate name for that cable should be :)
 
Steve Kanefsky said:
The product manufacturer isn't responsible for every search engine that might be used to find their products.
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Exactly. So why cater to the retarded ones that can’t read whole web pages? LOL.

Steve Kanefsky said:
I still don't see what bugs you so much about naming a cable for the things that it connects to rather than only by the specifications of the cable and connector itself.
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Because it’s marketing wank that makes people dumber. Already covered. But...

Steve Kanefsky said:
Even cables that are used for transmitting digital audio aren't inherently digital in any way.
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Exactly. It’s just a cable.

Steve Kanefsky said:
They're just cables with certain kinds of connectors and impedance specifications, but it's a lot easier to find the correct one by describing it in terms of what it's used for rather than purely based on the cable specifications.
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If you’re dumb, yes. No reason to be dumb. The digital recorder and the smartphone both come with a spec list in the box. There it is right there. Also available via any search engine. “What kind of connector is on my whiz-bang device?”

But yes. Marketing caters to the stupid. It’s not a good reason to advocate for marketing wank though. It just makes people stupider.

It’d be one thing if these were some sort of esoteric connector rarely used. Then someone might have to do something wild like take a picture and ask “what is this thing?”

But these are bog standard 3.5mm plugs every portable device someone has owned since the 80s has on them. Doesn’t take much brainpower to figure out what they are.
 
Steve Kanefsky said:
How are they going to get the call if the user failed to find their product in the first place? :)
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You’re catching on.

“You must be this tall to ride the ride.”

:)

If... “How do I figure out what standard connector used since the 80s on the original Walkman cassette player, is on my devices?” ... is a difficult question for someone...

Maybe they should use the two operable brain cells they have, to fly the plane. Hahaha.
 
denverpilot said:
But these are bog standard 3.5mm plugs every portable device someone has owned since the 80s has on them. Doesn’t take much brainpower to figure out what they are.
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It's gotten a little more complicated nowadays that a 3.5mm connector could be a TS microphone or line-level input, TRS stereo headphone or line-level output, or a TRRS combination jack such as on smartphones and some laptops. Apple laptops even combine an S/PDIF optical audio output with TRRS into a single 3.5mm jack.
 
Steve Kanefsky said:
It's gotten a little more complicated nowadays that a 3.5mm connector could be a TS microphone or line-level input, TRS stereo headphone or line-level output, or a TRRS combination jack such as on smartphones and some laptops. Apple laptops even combine an S/PDIF optical audio output with TRRS into a single 3.5mm jack.
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Ooh. You’re up to a whopping three connectors. All easily looked up in the device manual.

Is that supposed to be difficult?

You haven’t made a very good argument for teaching people to be anything but dumber.

Whatever floats your boat, I’m cool with it.

People can be as dumb as they like. Advocating for “continuing the stupid” just isn’t my style on something this simple.

$3 cable, $27 in marketing wank. Just how it goes if you can’t read...
 
denverpilot said:
You haven’t made a very good argument for teaching people to be anything but dumber.
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On the noble cause of educating, would now be a good time to step in and say, oh and by the way, people, there is no such thing as digital. It's all analog, we just close our eyes when things happen and we open them again when they're back to steady-state?
 
GreatLakesFlying said:
On the noble cause of educating, would now be a good time to step in and say, oh and by the way, people, there is no such thing as digital. It's all analog, we just close our eyes when things happen and we open them again when they're back to steady-state?
Click to expand...

That's actually pretty good.
 
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